I have cleared the eyeball test and still haven't gotten my just due. That drives me to become more and more successful because of the lack of everything they have been giving me.
It has gotten worse as I'm becoming more successful. My nerves. Just because there's a bit more pressure, and people are expecting a lot more from me.
As things have progressed and I've gotten older, I've gotten more and more involved on the producing side. It's been a natural progression. The more you become exposed in a particular medium, the more you can bring to the table and people start trusting you. You're valued a little bit more, so you have more of a voice. It's something I would like to do, through the rest of my career.
The people are not coming because of me. They didn't come before me. It's because of a lack of education and understanding, so it makes me more motivated. It's like my mother said about having an artistic child - she learned more from him and he gets more attention and more of the love, not less.
What drives that desire to destroy Paris Hilton? What drives that desire to venerate Angelina Jolie? I do understand it, but it still baffles me. It baffles me when people treat me specially and differently, because I just want to look at them and go, 'What are you talking about? I'm just a person.'
Everything shifted for me after 'Rush.' It wasn't as financially successful as other things I'd done, but it gave me more movement, more options, more doors opening, more meetings. All of a sudden, it's, 'Oh, wow! You're an actor!'
A more happy mind leads to quietness and clarity. And that clarity helps you have a greater capacity to do more and to become more successful and more giving.
When I was younger, it was very easy to ignore me because I was like some crazy hippie kid. But as I've gotten older, and I'm more gray and more lines on my face, it has given me a lot more gravitas.
No matter how successful I become as a playwright, my mother would be thrilled to hear me tell her that I'd just lost twenty pounds, gotten married and become a lawyer.
As I've grown as a person and gotten to know myself more - the question of how someone becomes who they become has gotten really interesting to me.
Due to my lack of family, I've almost built a family around me of friends that are, for me that is, they mean more to me than my own family.
The more successful you become, the more the demands of your ego will increase. In the beginning, you simply want to succeed, but your ego will not be satisfied. When you become a little more successful your ego wants to kill your competition. And when you become even more successful, it wants to make you the universal king. There's no telling what ego wants because our desire doesn't have any limit; therefore, its demands continually increase.
I've definitely become more commercially successful. I think everything has changed over the past two years. People seem to take me seriously now as a songwriter for other artists and as an artist, which is funny to me because I always thought I was good. I guess that's the main change, which is pretty interesting.
I think it was the beginning of Mrs. Bond's unquestioning faith in me when she saw me quickly enveloping the cat till all you could see of him was a small black and white head protruding from an immovable cocoon of cloth. He and i were now facing each other, more or less eyeball to eyeball, and George couldn't do a thing about it. As i say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise, and even today my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark, "Old Herriot may be limited in many respects, but by God he can wrap a cat.
Just playing more, I'm more comfortable. A big part is the boys are giving me a lead a lot of nights. Playing more has just let me be more comfortable in different situations in the game.
I swore to myself that I was never going to lose again, and that's what drives me still. More than money, more than titles, more than fame, it's the desire not to be defeated.
I'm no heartthrob. Honestly, I am really happy that people are just giving me a chance and paying attention to what it is I have to say, because I certainly hope I have a lot more to say than I do to look at. That's more important to me.